


A Young Girl's Fairy Story

by fog_shadow



Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Asexual Character, F/M, Gen, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-01-28
Packaged: 2018-03-09 09:32:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3244709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fog_shadow/pseuds/fog_shadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Vinculus' wives were five in number, and each was entirely unaware of the existence of the other four. To the youngest, who was fifteen, Childermass said that though he appeared to the world to be a servant of the great Mr Norrell of Hanover-square, he was in secret a magician himself. She, much to everyone's surprize, fell in love with him.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Young Girl's Fairy Story

**Author's Note:**

> The above summary is in fact paraphrased from the end of chapter 21.

The young girl was not really a young girl: she was married. It was true that her marriage was not a great romance such as she had heard about in stories, but neither was it bad. Her husband was much older than her, but she did not mind that at all. Neither did she find her husband to be a bad man; at least, he was not cruel to his wife, though he was absent from home far more frequently than he was present, so there might well have been much the young girl did know about his character.

It was during such an absence that the young girl came home one day to find a strange man standing at the door. She thought at first that he might be a dun.

'Who are you?' she asked.

'Ah!' the man said. 'That is a great secret. But I will tell you.'

'Well?' the girl asked when he remained silent.

'It is a long story,' he said.

She hesitated before offering, 'Will you come in, then?'

'Gladly.'

Inside, they sat down upon rough and battered wooden stools. The young girl, after careful consideration, had offered her visitor some refreshment from her meagre pantry, but he declined.

'What is this story?' the girl asked. 'I do love a good story,' she added.

And so the man told her a wondrous tale of how he seemed to be a servant to a great magician—a man who baffled their nation's enemies—and all the world believed this, even his master. At his master's command, he had set out on many quests, and vanquished foes and conversed with sages, all to make his master stronger. But, because one does not serve a magician for many years without learning a trick or two, and because one does not provide useful service without _knowing_ a trick or two, he had come to be a magician as well. No one knew this great secret—not his fellow servants, not his master, not anyone in the wide world—but now he had told the girl because, he said, she seemed like a trustworthy soul. And because she loved a good story.

The young girl was not entirely certain she believed his tale. She had heard, of course, of the great magician who baffled their nation's enemies—had heard, even, of two such men. But she did not believe that a man would be both a magician and a servant, for surely a magician would have no reason to serve anyone. So, feeling herself quite clever, she devised a test.

'If you are a magician,' the young girl said, 'do something magical.'

'What would you like me to do?'

The young girl was very surprized by this question. She had not expected that _she_ would be asked to chuse the magic—she did not know any magic. Perhaps it was a trick, she thought: if she could not name some magical task for the man to perform, then he would not have to do any magic. She looked around her for inspiration, but her surroundings did not suggest anything magical. They were simply the dim features of any corner of London whose inhabitants did not have the time or the energy or the money or whatever else was necessary to make them more beautiful.

'Make something pretty,' the young girl said.

The man grinned and seemed to produce out of the thin air a fancy glass jar, filled with colourful sweets. He bowed and presented it to the girl, who took it gingerly, and examined it outside and in.

'That is very pretty,' she told the magician.

* * *

The magician (who claimed his name was John, though this seemed a very plain name for anyone who could do magic) continued to visit from time to time. He continued to tell her stories—of his own magical quests, and then about the adventures of magicians from the past. And, though she insisted that she loved to _hear_ a good story, the magician encouraged her to tell stories of her own.

'But I don't know any stories,' she said. 'Surely not any you have not heard. And . . . and I cannot read in books to learn more.'

The magician seemed to think about this. 'Perhaps,' he said thoughtfully, 'you might tell stories about the people you know. Every person is a story—sometimes many stories.'

The girl considered this advice, and she began to tell him stories about her mother and her sisters and brothers, about her neighbours and her husband, about a shop she had once worked in and a family with whom she had been a maid. They were not as exciting as the magician's stories—or, at least, not as full of marvellous exploits—but they were funny, or sad, or lively, or moving, and the magician seemed to like them very much. In his turn, the magician took to reading stories to the girl of her chusing.

One day, however, the girl decided she wanted something more, and she thought of a way to get it. When the magician next appeared, she said to him, 'If you are a magician, do something magical.'

'I did so once already,' the magician replied. 'I made a jar of sweets for you.'

'I can't be sure of that,' the young girl said. 'It _could_ just have been a trick.'

The magician smiled. 'It could.'

'This time, you'll have to do something _really_ magical,' the young girl said.

'What would you like me to do?'

The young girl was ready for the question this time. 'Teach me how to read,' she said.

This the magician began to do, and for weeks and months he taught the girl the secrets of letters.

* * *

Ever since she had first seen the magician, the girl had never once seen her husband. She wondered if the magician might have driven him off, perhaps banished him so that he could court her in her husband's place.

When she first thought of this, the girl was frightened. But then she recalled that John had always been kind to her, though she did not see him so very often—less even than she had ever seen her husband. Soon, instead, she grew excited by the idea and began to pretend that the magician was really a fairy (which was why he had such a plain name as John, for as everyone knows, fairies have to be very careful with their _real_ names). And if he _had_ made her husband go away, that was just wicked enough—or even mischievous—for him to definitely be a fairy, but not enough for him to really be _bad_. Certainly, she came to be very much in love with him.

In all their encounters, however, he was never other than cordial and friendly to her, nor ever looked at her overlong, as men sometimes would. For a time, she thought he was merely courteous, but one day she began to believe that something rather specific was missing, and she thought of a way to fix it. When the fairy next appeared, she said to him, 'If you are a magician, do something magical.'

'I have done so twice already. I made a jar of sweets for you, and I taught you how to read.'

'I can't be sure of that,' the young girl said. 'The first time _could_ just have been a trick, and the second time, although you taught _me_ to do something magical, you might not have used any magic to do it.'

'But I had to be able to read to teach you how to do it.'

'Maybe,' the young girl said, 'but that might not be very magical to you. And I only asked you to _teach_ me. Not to read, yourself.'

The fairy smiled. 'So you did.'

'This time, you'll have to do something _really_ magical,' the young girl said.

'What would you like me to do?'

The young girl was ready for this question. She had, she thought, been ready for it from the first time she saw the fairy, if only she had let herself quite believe then, or had dared to ask it. 'I want you to love me.' This was the third request she had made of him—the final appeal, whose answer would shew whether her story ended well or ill.

'I have made a jar of sweets for you. I have read to you. I have taught you how to read for yourself. Are not these things love?'

'That is not what I mean,' the young girl said.

'No.' The fairy was silent for a very long time. At long last, he said, 'There is no magic that can do the thing you ask.' He bowed and turned to walk away.

'Wait, please!' the young girl called out. 'Please wait, John!' For surely he would have to stay if she used his name (even a name that was not his _real_ name). Surely he would, although she had already made three demands of him, and no fairy was ever required to answer more than thrice.

The fairy stopped then, but did not turn around.

'I am sorry,' the young girl said. 'I am sorry that I asked for an impossible thing. Can you please do one more magical thing? Just one more, I promise. Please.'

'What would you like me to do?'

The young girl was not ready for this question. She knew what her answer would be, but it was not an easy thing to say. 'Please forgive me,' she said.

'I forgive you,' John said.

* * *

This is not really a fairy tale. The young girl is not really a young girl: she is a wife . . . or perhaps a widow by now (it is not always possible to be certain of these things in real life). The man is not really a fairy: he is truly a human (there is more variety of character amongst humans than we ourselves often expect). There may not really have been any magic at all (it _could_ all just have been tricks).

And then there is the Tradition of Three Requests, which was allowed to bend into Four. Or perhaps _that_ is where the magic was?


End file.
